word and act, which the Jaina call the three Daṇḍa. This difficulty he evaded by an ingenious mechanical pun. The word Daṇḍa or stick is the same as the word Daṇḍa that connotes the three controls he found it so hard to exercise, so he gathered together three sticks and preached far and wide the comforting doctrine that any ascetic might do what he liked and linger at will on the primrose path of dalliance, provided he carried in his hand three rods. He gained a disciple, Kapila, who preached the doctrine even more vigorously than his master.
Mahāvīra was then reborn a god, and in his next birth was born as a Brāhman, and after that he was born alternately as a god and a Brāhman, with the occasional interlude of being born a king, for countless ages. He was once the famous king Vāsudeva or Tripṛiṣṭa, and during this incarnation he wrought so many evil deeds that he was condemned to spend his next rebirth in hell (Naraka); from there he issued forth in his following incarnation as a lion. When a lion he slew so many people that his evil karma condemned him once more to Naraka for an incarnation; when that was over he became a god, and then a Brāhman, and, alternating between the two, he at last arrived at his twenty-seventh and most famous incarnation as Mahāvīra. During his incarnation as Mariċī he had learned[1] that he was to be the twenty-fourth and last Tīrthaṅkara, whereupon he had been so overcome with pride and joy and had shown so much conceit, that he had accumulated a great weight of karma; it was this that very nearly resulted in his being born a Brāhman, but fortunately his karma was exhausted just before his birth in time to admit of his embryo being removed from ‘the beggarly Brāhman stock’ to the womb of a Kṣatriya lady.
The Jaina women have a story to account for the dis-
- ↑ King Bharāta had once asked his father Ṛiṣabhadeva who would be among the next Tīrthaṅkara, and Ṛiṣabhadeva had pointed to Mariċī who was sitting last in the assembly.
